THE AGE OF 'Ā'ISHA AT THE TIME Of

MARRIAGE

There is a constant and on-going struggle between Islam and its enemies.
This struggle manifests in different ways and brings forth different challenges, and it is this
very struggle that the flag-bearers of Islam have been tasked to commandeer.

Recently, there has been some criticism that has been levelled against Rasūlullāh ‫ﷺ‬
regarding him marrying Sayyidunā 'Ā'isha ؓ at such a young age. Many enemies of Islam
have latched on to this criticism and, as a result, began referring to Rasūlullāh ‫ ﷺ‬with
derogatory titles, etc.

The main accusations regarding the marriage of Sayyidunā 'Ā’isha ؓ are:

1. She was too young in age, while Rasūlullāh ‫ ﷺ‬was a much older man, being fifty
years of age.
2. That the consent of marriage was either not obtained from her or she was not capable of
giving it.

Hence, there arose a need for an article to be written regarding this criticism. We have tried,
as far as possible, to mention the answers to these two accusations, while elucidating some
other pertinent facts.

This is intended to be a brief resource, through which one may gain an understanding of the
position of the Ahlus-Sunnah on this issue, and it is not intended to be an in-depth thesis,
hence, more detail can be found elsewhere.

We ask Allāh ‫ ﷻ‬to accept this effort, and make it a means of clearing the induced
'uncertainty' regarding this issue, and may He make it a means of our forgiveness and
attaining His pleasure in this world and the Hereafter. Aameen.

Before delving into Islamic history, it is necessary to consider that the age deemed "acceptable" to marry is not
some objective standard across time, culture, and religion-but a subjective standard based on social construct.

For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia reports regarding Mary, mother of Jesus:

" ...the priests announced through Judea that they wished to find in Juda a respectable man to
espouse Mary, then twelve to fourteen years of age. Joseph, who was at the time ninety years
old, went up to Jerusalem among the candidates; a miracle manifested the choice God had
made of Joseph, and two years later the Annunciation took place."1

Likewise, the Talmud recommends "marrying off one's daughter as soon after she reaches

adulthood as possible, even to one's Slave."2 In fact, the Talmud presents some peculiar guidance
 on marriage, also stating, "A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by
coition, and if her deceased husband's brother cohabits with her, she becomes his."3

So while the Catholic Encyclopedia tells us that Mary and Joseph were married at the ages of about
twelve to fourteen and ninety, respectively, the Talmud permits marrying girls as young as three
years and one day.

The Islamic Responses to These Accusations

1. This heinous accusation was only raised by some orientalists of later times, and cannot
be proven to have been raised by the vehement enemies of Islam like the Prophet’s
tribe, Quraysh, during the time of Rasulullah ‫ﷺ‬, nor at any later time in Islamic
history. Even historians like Ibn Ishaaq and many others who reported the story of the
marriage of ‘Ā'isha ؓ did not stop and wonder about her young age nor did they have to
justify the Prophet’s position of marrying her. This was simply because, at that time,
girls were getting married at such a young age, and it was a normal practice. It was not an
abnormality. Had it been an abnormality, you would have found the arch-enemies of the
Prophet criticizing this, however, not a single cogent report of such criticism can be
presented! The fact that 'Ā'isha ؓ was about to be engaged to another man before the
proposal of Rasūlullāh ‫ ﷺ‬means that this was a customary practice and not a source
of shame or a denigration of morality. Rasūlullāh ‫ ﷺ‬was well known among his
tribesmen of the Quraysh to possess the highest moral characteristics and won the hearts of
people through the perfection of his manners. So, very interestingly, of the many
criticisms of Rasūlullāh ‫ ﷺ‬made at the time by his opponents, none focused on
‘Ā'isha's ؓ age at marriage.

Such individuals, who wasted no excuse to oppose and malign Rasuūlullāh ‫ﷺ‬
remained completely silent on this allegedly inappropriate marriage. How could that be?
The only logical explanation is that there was nothing objectionable about this marriage
because it was between two mature partners who both consented. lt is simply ludicrous to
assume that critics 1400 years after Rasūlullāh ‫ ﷺ‬are a better judge of his
characteristics and acts than were his contemporaries.

This rules out any latter-day criticism of such sort as the people who wanted to denigrate and
disparage Rasūlullāh ‫ ﷺ‬did not deem this to be valid criticism,

2. Furthermore, there exists a difference of opinion regarding her actual age at the time of marriage, the
lowest being six, and the highest being nineteen. Hence, the very basis of this criticism ls measly.
Since this is intended to be a brief analysis and not an in-depth thesis, we will suffice on just a few
such opinions:
a) The famous, classical historian of Islam, Ibn Jarīr Tabarī ؒ, wrote in his Tareekh at-Tabari':
 "In the time before Islam, Abu Bakr married two women. The flrst was Fatila daughter of
Abdul Uzza, from whom Abdullah and Asma were born. Then he married Urnm Ruman,
from whom Abdur Rahman and' ‘Ā'isha were born. These four were born before Islam (i.e. in
the pre-Islamic era, commonly known as Jahilliyyah)."

'Ā’isha's marriage to Rasūlullāh took place one year after Hijrah (emigration to Madinah), or around
624 AD. Therefore, even if' ‘Ā’isha had been born as late as 609 AD, only a year before Rasūlullāh
claimed prophethood, she would have been roughly fourteen at the time of emigration to Madinah
in 623 and therefore no less than fifteen at the time of her marriage to Rasūlullāh

b) The compiler of the famous Hadith collection Mishkat al-Masabih, Imam Wali-ud-Din
Muhammad ibn Abdullah Al-Khatib At-Tibrizi . who died 700 years ago, has also written
brief biographical notes on the narrators of Hadith reports. He writes under Asma (the older
daughter of Abu Bakr): "She was the sister of ‘Ā’isha Siddeeqah, wife of the Holy Prophet, and
was ten years older than her.
... In 73 A.H...Asma died at the age of one hundred years."
c) The same statement is made by the famous classical commentator of the Holy Quran, Ibn

Kathir, in his book AI-Bidaayah wan-Nihaayah.

"Asma died in 73 A.H. at the age of one hundred years. She was ten years older than her
sister 'Ā'isha."

This means that Asma must have been no younger than twenty-seven at the time of emigration.
'Ā'isha's marriage to Rasūlullāh was in 1 AH or by some sources 2 AH, when Asma was twenty-
eight. This means that at a minimum, 'Ā'isha was eighteen or nineteen upon her consenting
marriage to Rasūlullāh.

These are some of the arguments that are presented from an Islamic angle.

What The Bible Says About the Marriage of Young Girls To Much Older Men

Below we will shed some light on this issue from the angle of Christianity.

1. Abraham (Nabi Ibrāhįm )

In the book of Genesis in the Bible7 it is recorded about Abraham:

"Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant
named Hagar; so she said to Abram, 'The Lord has kept me from having children. Go,
sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.' Abram agreed to
what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took
her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with
 Hagar, and she conceded, So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael
to the son she had borne. Abram was eight-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael."

Firstly, it is evident that as Ibrāhīm, (who then had the name Abram) was 86 years old, Hajar
must have been some fifty years younger than him, and probably even younger, to bear a
child. Secondly, the bible speaks of Sarah (also Sarai) giving her maidservant Hajar to
Abraham. So Hajar's consent was not obtained but rather she was commanded by Sarah to
go and become Abraham's wife.

David (Nabi Dawood)

The first book of Kings in the Bible begins as follows:

"When King David was old and well advanced in years, he could not keep warm even when
they put covers over him. So his servants said to him, 'Let us look for a young virgin to attend
the king and take care of him. She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm.
Then they searched throughout Israel for a beautiful girl and found Abishag, a Shunammite, and
brought her to the king. The girl was very beautiful; she took care of the king and waited on him,
but the king had no intimate relations with her."

So there seems nothing wrong, according to the Bible, in procuring a young virgin, again apparently
without her consent, whose duties include lying with the elderly king in bed. The intention was certainly for
sexual enjoyment,

otherwise there was no necessity of looking for a young, beautiful virgin. A much older woman,
perhaps a widow, could have performed all these duties, including lying with the king to keep him
warm.

Mary and Joseph (Maryam and Nabi Yusuf)

The most famous marriage in Christianity is no doubt that of Mary, the mother of Jesus, with Joseph.
While the following details are not in the canonical Gospels in the Bible, it appears from other early
Christian writings (known as apocryphal writings) that Mary was twelve years old when the temple
elders decided to find a husband for her.
They selected the husband by drawing lots, and Joseph whom they chose was an elderly man, being, according to
some accounts, ninetv-years old. The husband was selected and Mary was handed over to him, and she played
no part in his selection.

These accounts are summed up in the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913 edition, which is available online, as follows:

"It will not be without interest to recall here, unreliable though they are, the lengthy stories
concerning St. Joseph's marriage contained in the apocryphal writings. When forty years of age, Joseph

married woman called Melcha or Escha by some, Salome by others; they lived forty-nine years

together and had six children.

A year after his wife's death, as the priests announced through Judea that they wished to find in the
 tribe of Juda a respectable man to espouse Mary, then twelve to fourteen years of age, Joseph, who

was at the he time ninety years old, went up to Jerusalem among the candidates; a miracle manifested the

choice God had made of Joseph.".

Although these apocryphal accounts are not now accepted by many Christians, and the Catholic Encyclopedia says
that they "are void of authority", yet it also speaks of their influence as follows:
"They nevertheless acquired in the course of ages some popularity; in them some ecclesiastical
writers sought
the answer to the well-known difficulty arising from the mention in the Gospel of the Lord's
brothers; from them also popular credulity has, contrary to all probability, as well as to the
tradition witnessed by old works
of art, retained the belief that St. Joseph was an old man at the time of marriage with the Mother of
God."

However, these accounts are accepted by the Eastern churches. The website of the Ukrainian
Orthodoxy has an article on this subject entitled An Elderly Joseph which agrees with the presentation in
the apocryphal writings "of Joseph as an elderly man, a widower with adult children". It concludes:

"The Christian East's picture of Joseph as a courageous, faithful, God-Centered elderly widower rings
true."

We give below, as Appendix, a quotation from one of these apocryphal books, The Infancy Gospel of James,
describing how Mary's husband was selected.

While the Western Christian churches may not accept these accounts as authentic, the Eastern churches
in Europe do accept that Marv was 12 years old and Joseph a widower 90 vears old when they
married. Moreover, there is
nothing in the Gospels of the New Testament to contradict these accounts, and the Gospel stories are not
at all inconsistent with these ages for Mary and Joseph.

These are some of the arguments presented from the angle of Christianity.

Contemporary Laws Regarding the Marriage Of Young Girls To Much Older Men
Below we will present some of the contemporary laws regarding a young girl marrying a man much older than
her.
..
1. For centuries in Scotland, the age of consent for girls was twelve-and parental consent was
unnecessary. Only in 1929 was the age raised to sixteen for girls. -

--
2. In America even today, 'Ā’'isha’s consenting marriage to Rasūlullāh would be considered
valid. For example, in New Hampshire, the legal age for girls is thirteen with parental consent.
3. In Massachusetts, the legal age for girls is twelve with parental consent.
4. In Mississippi, there is no age minimum for girls, as long as there is parental consent.
s. In California, there is age minimum for girls as long as there is parental consent.
6. Perhaps most unknown and shocking about American marriage laws is that child marriage is still
legal in
America-accordingly there have been over 200,000 child marriages in America since the year
2000, with some children as young as 11.
Granted, the American state laws were passed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries-not today. And granted,
Americans aged twelve or thirteen do not typically get married today. The point is, however, that even in recent
American History Americans had no objection to girls marrying at 12 or 13 and passed laws and passed laws
through their respected state legislatures to affirm that value.
These facts merely establish the point that "appropriate" marriage ages are based on ever-
changing social constructs -not some supposed objective, advanced contemporary standard.
Therefore, if we are to accuse Rasūlullāh of any impropriety in marrying ‘Ā’isha even if she was
fifteen. (Even though there exists a difference of scholars regarding the actual age), then we must
also condemn the Old Testament, New Testament, Europe, and numerous American states.)

Fascinating how critics of Rasūlullāh cite inconsistent information to allege him of wrongdoing
while remaining silent on this documented epidemic of child marriage in America. ‘Ā’'isha’s
marriage to Rasūlullāh was not by any means unusual when compared across time and culture -
even to contemporary standards.

The Immaculate and Absolutely Impeccable Perfection Of Rasulullah

‫فقد لبثت فيكم عمًر ا من قبله أفال تعقلون‬

"1 have indeed lived among you a whole lifetime before this. Will you not then understand ?"

In this verse, Rasūlullāh’s critics are reminded to reflect upon his entire life and cite a single
flaw in his character, a single injustice he committed, or a single lie that he told. The great

exegesis, al-Qurtubī : states in his magnum-opus, 'Tafsir al-Qurtubi':18

"1 have lived amongst you during (the entire period of) my youth, not disobeying Allah (even once),
do you expect of me now, when I have reached the age of forty years, that I would contravene
the command of Allah?"

•
History records that not a single contemporary-friend or foe, ally or adversary-could cite a flaw
in Muhammad's life prior to or after his claim to prophethood. Accordingly, history records that
any criticism he received after his claim to prophethood was not of his character or acts, but of the
claim to prophethood itself.
This argument was an open statement that Prophet Muhammad lived a demonstrably flawless and
truthful life so much so that even those who sought to kill him for his claim to prophethood, could not
find flaw with his morals or behaviors.
In conclusion, had the marriage to 'Ā'isha been unlawful, Rasūlullāh would never have married her.

May Allāh Ta' āla forgive us if we have erred, and may He keep us on the straight path, and may He
give us death with Imaan, and may He meet us in a state that He is pleased with us. Aameen.